RECORD DEALS AT PPH

20 January 2012

Hull,s award winning agents, PPH Commercial, reported a record month in December of office deals done in Hull and East Riding totally different to the regional and national trends.

The practice has been involved in the disposal of over 60,000 sq ft of office space for which have completed within the last few weeks of 2011.

The most significant transactions have been in the City Centre at Marina Court (18,000 sq ft), Brewery House (17,500 sq ft) and 3,000 sq ft in Dunedin House, together with 13,000 sq ft at Albion Mills, Willerby and 10,000 sq ft at Norwood House in Beverley.

Nick Pearce, Head of Office Agency at PPH commented that although we always see a flurry of activity in the office market towards the end of each year, this has been an exceptional take up of offices at the larger end of the market ,which now significantly reduces office availability particularly in Hull’s city centre nfor quality space..

With the completion of these transactions, there is now only approximately 11,000 sq ft of Grade A office space in the City Centre at 2 Humber Quays and part of that is already subject to strong interest.

The most pleasing aspect of the transactions concluded recently is that three of the main deals done are based on companies expanding within the area and creating new jobs . This is most certainly the case at Brewery House and also at Albion Mills with Summit Media moving from North Cliff to Willerby. The company have also just secured planning permission for a further 5,000 sq at Albion Mills which will be built during the course of 2012 to expand their corporate headquarters.

The overall take up of office transactions involving PPH in the Hull and East Riding area during 2011 has, according to Nick Pearce, exceeded 160,000 sq ft. This is a significant increase on previous years when in total with all the agents involved, the office daels completed in Hull and East Riding in 2010 was about 130,000 sq ft and in 2009, 190,000 sq ft. This will be the first time combined office deals between all the agents exceeded 200,000 sq ft for over 10 years.

Although these are very good signs as far as the office market is concerned, it does however create a slightly false picture.

The positive aspect is that job creations should hopefully occur, but for those companies still looking to take Grade A or quality Grade B space in Hull city centre the opportunities will be very limited unless speculative development occurs. In the current economic climate we will be restricted in the central core.

On the outskirts of the city centre, speculative development is proposed at Bridgehead, which will be available towards at the end of year but little else is coming out the ground yet.

On the more cautious note, the office market for more traditional medium sized space of between 1500 sq ft and 5,000 sq ft remains extremely difficult, there are still one or two opportunities on the outskirts of the city centre on the business parks, but now little in the city centre.

The success of December 2011 is positive ,but Nick Pearce stated that 2012 could be very different with limited availability and the continuing difficult economic climate.